"Nordhoff is a world by itself in which it would be almost a sin to labor and a crime not to commune with nature in her ethereal beauty. Nor do the people violate these commandments, although they raise a large amount of fruit and pursue some industry among their beautiful surroundings."
- The Ojai, January 1899

The small valley was attracting a lot of attention before the turn of the century. By 1872, F.S.S. Buckman had planted the first citrus trees on a large parcel of land that he owned in the East End of the valley.
Buckman had found a way to bring water down from Horn Canyon to his property, and with the hard work of clearing all of the wild brush and carrying away the rocks by hand, he was finally able to plant an orange grove on his cleared land.
When Edward Thacher arrived in the Ojai Valley, he came in search of the finest oranges being grown in the state of California. His search ended when he tasted the Buckman-grown citrus. He purchased the ranch and built a small home on the property.
Edward was the son of Thomas A. Thacher, professor of Latin at Yale University, and Elizabeth Day Thacher, daughter of the president of Yale. Edward's mother bore five sons, but did not live long after the birth of the last one. Thomas Thacher then married Elizabeth Sherman, and three more boys and one girl were added to the family.
Sherman Day Thacher was the oldest child of this second marriage, and at the age of 17, he enrolled in the Yale Law School. The following year he went to Kansas City to practice law. Soon he was joined by his close friend Horace Taft, the brother of William Howard Taft, America's 27th president. The law firm was not a success and soon the two men returned to their homes.
Sherman's brother George, the youngest of the Thacher boys, had a bad heart condition which was brought on by a case of scarlet fever as a child. In 1887, he was 17 years old and was not given long to live. It was decided that a mild climate might prolong his life, and with Sherman being out of a job and getting rather depressed, he brought George to California and they stayed with their half-brother Edward.
The brothers came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama. What they found when they arrived in the Ojai Valley were peaceful surroundings, extreme heat and dry hills. It, however, suited them well; they adapted to the carefree ranch life and were very happy.
George's health continued to fail and this brought his mother to the valley to help care for him. George died in January of 1889. The first library in the small town of Nordhoff, now Ojai, was named the George Thacher Memorial Library in honor of this young man.
Sherman decided that he would stay in the little valley, and he took up a claim on a piece of government land that was about a mile north of his brother Edward's ranch. The first job for Sherman to undertake was the building of a small three-room house on his newly acquired property.
In June of 1889, Sherman received a letter from an old friend of the family, Professor Henry W. Farnam from Yale. In the letter, he asked if his nephew Henry Farnam would come and live with Sherman and be tutored for his entrance into Yale. This was acceptable, as Sherman and all of his brothers except George, had for years gained extra money by tutoring students when they had lived in the East. Sherman agreed to let Henry come, and Professor Farnam and Henry arrived in August of 1889 to look over the place and make the arrangements.
It didn't take long before the word had spread around the whole country that Sherman Thacher would tutor, and an ambitious 14-year-old from Ventura asked if he could join Henry. The second student Rex Sherer had almost no money, but he was willing to milk the cow and do odd jobs around the place to pay for his tutoring.
The second year, Sherman tutored five boys, and since he realized that the oranges were not going to do much to help him financially, he decided that teaching boys would supply him with a steadier income.
Sherman advertised his small learning institute in national magazines and the response was gratifying; the school opened with 11 boys. Edward Thacher was also able to spend some time teaching at the school, and Sherman's mother helped with the boys' manners.
William Thacher, one of Sherman's brothers, arrived in the valley in 1895 to join the school faculty. William had been a top-flight tennis player at Yale, and he became the founder of the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament. He arrived only a few months before the school suffered its worst disaster.
Early in the morning of June 18, 1895, a fire broke out in one of the buildings at the school and, due to little water pressure, it quickly spread. All of the buildings, except the barn and the stone houses, were completely consumed. All of the people living at the school were unharmed and they moved into the hotel at the Pierpont Cottages.
Sherman was faced with the decision - should he abandon the school idea and return to the East, or should he try to rebuild the boarding school?
Since he had recently met Miss Eliza Blake and had fallen in love, Sherman was influenced by her to borrow money and rebuild the school.
The first buildings to be rebuilt were the dormitory and the school room and offices, which later became the Middle School dormitory and the main building with parlor, dining room and kitchen downstairs and upstairs room for the Lower School boys.
To decorate the dining room, Sherman hung flags of every country around the walls and the American flag over the door. Besides the flags, the room was also decorated by Japanese lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The heat was provided by a large wood-burning stove and the lighting was by kerosene lamps.
In the summer of 1896, Sherman married Eliza and built a lovely home for his new bride at the school.
The school had many unique features. Calisthenics came about 10 a.m., after classes had been held for an hour and a half. At recess, everybody played baseball, followed by a gathering outside the kitchen for soup and crackers.
The students were allowed to come to the dining room at breakfast and lunch in blue jeans or khakis, but they had to wear a coat and have a bandanna tied around their neck. The coats and bandannas hung on hooks outside the dining room door to be snatched up and put on before they entered the room.
At breakfast, the boys would be excused from the table individually as each finished eating. At the other two meals, everyone in the dining room arose at the same time to be dismissed by the headmaster.
For the evening meal, the boys were required to dress in suits, white shirts and ties, hair brushed neatly and shoes polished. Dinner was prepared on a wood-burning stove by the Chinese cooks.
In the evening after supper, everyone gathered in the school parlor and Sherman read aloud for about 40 minutes. The boys then went off to study hour. When it was time for the youngest ones to go to bed, they had to come down, go through the parlor and shake hands and say good night to whoever was there. A half-hour later, the Middle School boys would come through the parlor and say good night - and then the Upper School boys would do the same.
As the student body increased, the school expanded. The Thacher School reputation was spreading across America.

"The great experience for a boy comes from the ownership of his horse (each boy must own one and take full care of it), and from the camping trips into the neighboring mountains and valley, over the trails of the forest reserve in which the school is situated. Each boy learns something of what the wilds have to teach. He must know how to play his part as a good camper; to take care of his horse on the trail and in camp; to make a proper fire; cook, wash up and leave camp and fire clean and safe, and to be a good fellow at all times."
- The Ojai, 1919 (to be continued)

© 2000 The Ojai Valley News

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